Note: This blog expresses only the opinions of the blog owner, and does not represent the opinion of any organization or blog that is associated with RONIN ON EMPTY.
***The following is a piece I wrote to introduce Big Trouble in Little China at a screening at UC Santa Cruz. I’ve slightly re-edited it for LoveHKFilm.com Hope you enjoy it. ***
The film I’d like to talk about today is the very epitome of a cult classic. John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China may have flamed out at the box office in 1986, but it eventually rose like a phoenix from the ashes on home video, cable, and DVD, garnering a fervent cult following. Twenty-three years later, there are a number of theories as to why it didn’t click with audiences at the time. Maybe it was bad publicity, maybe no publicity, or, as I would like to think, maybe it was simply a few light years ahead of everything else out there.
Even so, I think, in some respects, the movie could be considered a bit old-fashioned – and not just because it boasts the kind of rapid-fire line delivery you’d see in such Howard Hawks films as Bringing up Baby and His Girl Friday. No, it’s the genre. Big Trouble’s resemblance to a Western is neither accidental nor merely symptomatic of Carpenter’s own filmmaking tastes. Before Buckeroo Banzai director W.D. Richter was brought in for rewrites, the original screenplay by Gary Goldman and David Weinstein set the events of the film in the Old West. The original plot centered on a cowboy who drifts into San Francisco’s Chinatown, gets his beloved horse stolen, and finds himself fighting for his life in a mystical Chinatown underworld.
The film that almost made Tony Jaa go all Col. Kurtz on everyone as a result of soul-crushing directorial pressures and scary budgetary overruns has been available in the United States and elsewhere for a while now. I saw it on a plane ride overseas, and I’ve been waiting for the right time to discuss it. Although I loved the film’s final reveal, the ending isn’t remotely what you might expect from an all-out action movie. On the bright side, he didn’t spend the whole movie looking for an elephant and/or precious artifact. As a conversation starter, I’d like to pose this question to those that have seen the film:
What do you think of Ong Bak 2’s ending? Is it a cliffhanger? A philosophical anti-climax? What? How did you interpret it?
Well, I finally finished my 300th review for, appropriately enough, Akira Kurosawa’s Sanjuro.I know it’s not the best-written review I’ve ever put out, but I did the best I could. I’ve always found that it’s much harder to review movies that you really love than it is to critique films that you really hate. In fact, I had to write my review of the 2007 remake, Tsubaki Sanjuro, first (to be published later) to really get a handle on what I wanted to say about the original.
As promised, in anticipation of the new HK movie, here are some photos from the Storm Warriors exhibit at VivoCity at Harbourfront in Singapore. After making the rather long trip on the MRT (subway to Americans like me) to see the exhibit, I was a little annoyed that the people at the Information Counter had no idea what I was talking about. You would assume that a major Hong Kong star like Ekin Cheng coming to a mall in Singapore would be kind of a big deal, but not only did the young man that I talked to NOT have an earthly clue who or what I was talking about, but he had the nerve to say — when I asked whether his co-worker might know — “She doesn’t know either.”
Ah, so helpful.
Thankfully, I found the exhibit all by myself. It was hidden away in the lobby of the theater. For more information on Ekin Cheng’s visit to Singapore to unveil these props, click here. Sorry about the image quality!
Since those pics aren’t exactly earth-shattering, I’ve embedded a link to a high quality version of the Storm Warriors Final Theatrical Trailer that was released a little while ago. Enjoy!
While visiting a bookstore in Singapore, I noticed that Ryu Murakami’s short novel, Audition, had finally been published in an English translation (NOTE: it ain’t coming out in the US ’till 2010!). The chilling tale was most famously (infamously?) adapted by Takashi Miike in 1999. You can read my largely positive review here. I can’t say that I cared much for Murakami’s In the Miso Soup or 69, but I liked Miike’s film quite a bit so I thought — what the heck! — I’d give the source text a chance. At a short 200 pages, I was able to read it in the space of a few hours while lounging in Singapore (instead of studying for my Qualifying Exams. Doh!). Here are some thoughts…
I would say that the novel is every bit as gripping as the film is. The movie, of course, has the added advantage of actually terrifying you with disturbing onscreen imagery (which also leads viewers to have a better sense of what might unfold in a way that the book doesn’t). Less influenced by the dream logic that pervades the film adaptation, Murakami’s novel “makes sense” in an intellectual way — everything, bizarre or not, is understandable and explained quite clearly. Admittedly, that doesn’t make it better or worse than the film, but it certainly makes for a very different experience from the more symbolic, nightmarish landscape that envelops the 1999 film.
Here’s the plot description that I gave for the film, minus the actor’s names:
Sparked by his teenage son’s encouragement, middle-aged widower and all-around swell guy Aoyama begins to look for a new wife. Upon the suggestion of his movie industry pal Yoshikawa, our hero agrees to take part in calling an audition for a new film, but with the ulterior motive of finding himself an “ideal woman.” Of the thirty young prospects, only one captures Aoyama’s interest - the beautiful, demure Asami. We’ve all seen enough She’s All That-inspired crap to guess what might happen next: the two lovebirds quickly fall for each other, but when Asami learns that the audition was a ruse, she dumps our protagonist. Naturally, Aoyama then spends the rest of the movie trying to win her back - which he does and the two marry. So in the end, Aoyama has a wife for himself and a mother for his son. Everybody’s happy. The end.Of course, that “educated guess” isn’t what happens AT ALL.
The first 168-pages detail the budding romance between middle-aged Aoyama and the younger Asami, and the remaining 32-pages deal with the ghoulish conclusion of said relationship. I have to say that I did prefer the film’s inclusion of a “detective story” plot that does much to energize the last act, an element which is sadly not present at all in the novel.
Still, the writing is great. Murakami’s characterization of the introspective Aoyama and his charming, all-too-wise teenage son, Shige, is reason enough to pick up the novel, that is– if you’re not too squeamish about horror. Further, the novel’s implicit commentary on patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny, not to mention it’s vivid exploration of the psychological toll of childhood trauma and abuse make this much more substantive than your average (Read: crappy) horror novel.
And so, a word or warning: the 32-page finale, which begins with a character reminiscing about a sexual liaison in a way that may be WAAAAAY too explicit for casual readers, quickly turns into a dizzying, Grand Guignol-style ordeal that was almost as difficult to read as it was to watch in the chilling film adaptation.
But if you can stomach it, Audition is still a damn good read.
Well, a lot of Hong Kong-related news has gone down during my visit in Singapore. The big story hitting the papers recently is the fact that Andy Lau is married. Apparently, he’s been dating Carol Chu secretly for 24(!) years, but it turns out they actually got hitched in Las Vegas on June 23, 2008. I guess it’s a big deal because of the very looooooooooooong engagement, plus the fact that Andy promised his fans he’d announce his marriage as soon as it happened.
After being publicly revealed as a married man, Andy’s been apologetic on that front, while the media has continued to froth at the mouth, trying to out Andy’s “secret kids” (apparently, they’re just relatives) and putting forth various theories as to a) why it took so long for Andy Lau to get married and b) why he kept it a secret at all. As someone who’s no stranger to celebrity weddings, I’ll offer my two cents on the various “theories” that were initially making the rounds:
In tribute to James Cameron’s new film, Sanjuro employs Lee Byung-Hun as his official LoveHKFilm.com Avatar.
Well, I’ve finally made it to Singapore, so it’s time for a blog update. During my stay I’ve already seen the Laughing Gor prequel, TURNING POINT, and I hope to see OVERHEARD eventually as well as the Singaporean film WHERE GOT GHOST? perhaps as early as today. I also finally got the opportunity to watch Pixar’s UP, which is hands-down the best movie of the summer.
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